Talk:Main Page/Sandbox

I set up this sandbox to work on improving the layout of the main page:

• Section headers appear at the top, to make it easier to navigate to other areas of the site. The "More news" link takes the reader to an embedded anchor where news from each category is summarized (lower on the main page).
• The "lead" story is right up top, as it is on all other major news outlets. One important departure from Wikipedia is the use of a large photograph from the lead story. This is important to grab the reader's attention and helps the main page to visually communicate that Wikinews is a news site.
• The "intro/welcome" text is placed in a box off to the right, on a blue field, so it is still highly visible, but doesn't push important content down on the page.
• The width is narrower, to fit on smaller monitors.
• Other small changes are made to improve the overall fit and finish.

Please let me know what you think.

— DV 20:17, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

DV I think your design is a great improvement. It makes me feel far more I'm coming here for NEWS first and opportunity to contribute second. The opportunity is v important but if the news function is not OK then the opportunity isn't worthwhile so I think they have to rank with news on top.

You wrote to me using my IP address as I was playing with your sandbox page and yes Ive done a bit if wiki but not wiki tables and I'm not good with css! I do have a good eye for layout though.

1. The "lead" story is right up top, as it is on all other major news outlets. One important departure from Wikipedia is the use of a large photograph from the lead story. This is important to grab the reader's attention and helps the main page to visually communicate that Wikinews is a news site.

Shan: Ive tried reducing the picture a bit. It makes the co,umns work better as the empty spaces close up a lot. I do agree a pic is good but not so huge it takes up the whole of the centre space of my screen and I have to scroll down to find what it's about. (I deliberately use a 17" so I don't design too big for average users) For slower loaders it's also good to have text at top anyway to read while the pic is loading below. So in your draft I put the newer text above and the backup text below the pic. It'd be good for the title to be big too.

QUOTE

1. Section headers appear at the top, to make it easier to navigate to other areas of the site. The "More news" link takes the reader to an embedded anchor where news from each category is summarized (lower on the main page).

Shan: I'd like to see this go even further with the Welcome bit shifted BELOW the category list so all the first stuff in the top bands of the screen is NEWS. Even better put all the editing stuff on the right and the news links on the left see below.

1. The "intro/welcome" text is placed in a box off to the right, on a blue field, so it is still highly visible, but doesn't push important content down on the page.

Ideally I'd like the categories (More News) + Regions to appear on the LEFT under Main Page. Search box at top. Then move ALL the stuff about editing currently under Main Page over on the RIGHT. Then we get a good clear categorisation: look left or centre for NEWS look right for editing.

1. The width is narrower, to fit on smaller monitors.

Yes this is great. Too much stuff aims at big monitors. Thanks.

Thanks for the additional feedback. I like your ideas, so if you're not totally up to speed on Wiki page editing, I would be happy to make the changes you are describing.

The changes are hard to do with two people editing the page at the same time, so let me know if you want to try them yourself or not, so we don't step on each other's toes too much.

Whether you want to try your proposed changes yourself or not, perhaps we could set up a Sandbox1, Sandbox2, etc., to make it easier for other editors (and the Admins) to compare different ideas, and to make it easier for anyone to work at the same time on changes that involve the basic structure of the page?

— DV 22:58, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Topic sections

How about just removing the entire section on the bottom with articles relating to topics? That's ANOTHER thing that needs editing each time we have a new article, and can be easily replaced by the topic listings you have on the right here (which I've been wanting to do for awhile, but the holidays have stopped me from doing real work). That might help condense the page... what do you think? Lyellin 23:26, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just removed the newstories template- cuts down the size of the page dramatically, and we don't really need it since we have the links on the right. Anyone object? Lyellin 18:03, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea.

However, I noticed that the individual section pages for each category weren't quite synched up with what was in the newstories section, so we might want to synch them up so as to not lose article links.

Happy New Year!

— DV 19:45, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good look.

With some very minor tweaks, an admin should put this version up ASAP. Davodd | Talk 01:29, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My Impressions

I do like what you've done, but I think this still needs a lot of further work.

For instance, take a look at this screen-grab that I've done of your shot. In 1280x1024 (sorry about the colour compression, I didn't want a gigantic file):

Link to giant image file

See that giant empty blank horrible space to the right of the image? Yuck! You might want to center that image or do something to prevent that from looking that way. The big empty space underneath the weather graphic (which is compressed so small that you can't make much out anyway) is also ugly.

There also needs to be a "Headline Story" heading there somewhere, so that readers know exactly what it is that they're looking at. Other than that, I dislike how when I load up the page, I only see a single story without having to scroll down. Users hate being compelled to scroll, and having everything hidden down towards the bottom of the page is poor design.

Take a look at the Wikipedia mainpage, and you'll see how these things should be done. The entire page is only two screens "deep", while yours is about six or seven. Try to be more concise - after all, there's no reason why "everything plus the kitchen sink" has to be up there. I'm not saying that the existing page is all that good either, but frankly, I don't really think that this one is much of an improvement.

On the positive side of the ledger, I do quite enjoy the concept of making the news first, at least on the main page, and putting the whole "You can write news!!!" thing as a secondary thing. Your revision does that quite well.

I hope you take this (admittedly, mostly negative) comment in the constructive fashion that it was intended :-)

Lankiveil 06:52, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC).

User Shanforest had some alternative ideas that may solve the white space issues you are pointing out.

I will try out some more designs to address these concerns.

Happy New Year!

— DV 19:43, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Developing stories

--Carlosar 00:34, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC) I redesigned the Developing stories here. It is simple and it gives information about the status of the article. It is a general ideal about how the Developing stories could be. Off course it can be improved, the pictures can be changed, etc. The page eliminates the sections:Ongoing disputes and Editing needed (with some effort you could eliminate the Requested articles section too). My idea is about a page which is more informative about the status of the article. I created the following status: Comprehensive text, Writing unchecked, Developing text and POV dispute. Another status could be created or some of them could be changed. The meaning of the status can be discussed, example: Comprehensive text means a final article waiting for review, etc. Another possibility is some mixture: the status would be put only in the Editing needed section, etc.

I replied over on the talk page for your New developing stories design. — DV 00:59, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

--Carlosar 12:34, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC) I am not a native English speaker and my articles need to be checked by true English speakers. So I would like to allert other people about this. This was one of the reasons I have redesigned the Developing stories.

Suggestions

Okay, I think this is great. But I have a few suggestions:

1. Make the picture smaller, then wrap the text around it. Even a picture half of that size would be good, and then you waste less space and let the user see more on the page.
2. Remove the weather image from the right-hand side column. It's way too small to be useful.
3. The "Special Reports" and "Regions" thing below all of the stories and above the weather is not necessary, and could be consolidated into the side column.
4. There's an empty box right above the weather (I can fix that myself.)(aand... I just did.)
   

Other than that, it's great! Cap'n Refsmmat 03:01, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Another attempt

I added Main Page/Sandbox4 — I tried to address what I saw were some existing navigation problems, as well as stretching issues. -- IlyaHaykinson 04:44, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I like this, I like it a lot. The only problem I can see is that the "Widespread Infrastructure Damage" image is slightly misaligned to the blue box to its right, which looks quite odd. Also, I think "Regions" is a better flowing heading than "Region". Other than that, top effort! Lankiveil 05:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC).

I can't get the image to align (the code to offset it is part of the [[Image]] markup, I think). If someone else has an idea, please help. As for region vs regions — it's meant to be "Browse..by: Subject" and "Browse..by: Region". It would seem like "Browse..by: Regions" doesn't sound as good. -- IlyaHaykinson 05:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Latest news

Carlosar 12:50, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC) -- Latest news reports is daily based. And if we did it weekly based? My idea is showing a larger quantity of articles at the main page, specially the old ones(3 weeks, 7 weeks before, or even some articles one month before). Because Wikinews developing process is slow, sometimes a good article is not shown because it is old. My idea about Wikinews is a mixture of newspaper and weekly magazine. I think that the larger the quantity of articles shown at the main page, the better.

Calendar

Carlosar 12:53, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)--And about a Calendar like the one in:Current events?

I agree --User:Anonymous101 09:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Another Sandbox

I tried out some ideas with Main_Page/Sandbox3 (for our readers with small displays) and Main_Page/WideSandbox3 (for our readers with larger displays). They're a pair that link to each other.

Please see the comments on the discussion pages for those versions as well.

— DV 08:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)